


back to real life

by SalazarTipton



Series: devil!dad and spidey!son [6]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Back to School, Bullying, Five Stages of Grief, Gen, Matt is Peter's dad, devildad, spideyson, vaguley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:15:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23437537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SalazarTipton/pseuds/SalazarTipton
Summary: Now that Peter is settled into Matt's apartment, it's time for his life to regain some normality, and that includes school...
Relationships: Matt Murdock & Karen Page, Matt Murdock & Peter Parker, Ned Leeds & Peter Parker
Series: devil!dad and spidey!son [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1194525
Comments: 10
Kudos: 235





	back to real life

When Peter’s alarm goes off he presses snooze, giving himself time to wallow in his warm bed. It’s six am and he has to be awake. It’s six am and he has to wake up to go to school. He has to get out of bed, get dressed, and go face Matt, his  _ father _ . And Aunt May isn’t here to ruffle his hair and laugh at his bleary-eyed yawns while he tries to eat his toast. It’s just him and a guy he didn’t know existed until, like, a month ago. Just when the weight of the day starts settling over him, the alarm blares again. 

He shuts it off again. It wouldn’t be hard to just burrow his face in his pillow and try to go back to sleep. Maybe Matt doesn’t know what time he has to be at school so he can get a little more time to work up to facing the day. Then he could be late and miss out on the morning hallways full of staring and whispers and sad looks at him. 

“Peter? It’s time to get up for school,” Matt calls out before knocking on his bedroom door. Even without his heightened hearing he could have made out the unhappy groans being muffled by a pillow. “There’s coffee…”

He waits for a few seconds of shuffling.

“Okay, I’m coming,” Peter finally answers him. Matt smiles to himself and heads back towards his bedroom for his tie and suit jacket. 

Matt’s been getting used to having Peter around. It feels a little like him and Foggy’s first apartment: hearing him in the other room through the incredibly thin walls and not quite knowing how to live around each other yet, interrupting what each other are doing at the wrong times or leaving things out to be tripped over or spilled. Thankfully, Matt can get around the little obstacles Peter probably isn’t even aware he’s creating when the room is empty, if he’s focused, but he can’t exactly explain taking a zig zag pattern past the couch because Peter left his shoes all about. 

“Do you remember my friend, Karen?” Matt asks as he slides his laptop into the messenger bag on the coffee table. 

Peter nods in response, and then nearly smacks himself.  _ He can’t see that, dumb dumb! _ “Uh yeah. She’s nice. Why?”

“She’s coming over soon to take you to school.”

“I...uh, that’s okay. I can just take the subway or something. She doesn’t need to do that,” Peter fumbles out as he shoves things into his backpack. Matt can feel the anxiety rolling off of him. 

“Karen said it’s no problem and she’d like to. I’ve found it’s best not to argue with what she wants,” Matt says, trying to get some humor into the heavy air around them. 

There’s a knock on the door just a few minutes later, like Matt knew she was close when he brought it up and left out the room for arguing. Peter shakes his head to himself a little. He hasn’t been on his phone or checked his watch, as far as he could tell. It’s probably nothing. He keeps trying to take things as they are, but there’s this little part of him in the back of his head saying that every little thing is out to get him or bother him or just screw things up even further. He doesn’t want to be bitter and angry at everything anymore. Peter just wishes he could skip past all this emotional bullshit and just be  _ himself again _ . 

He gets pulled out of his thoughts by Karen’s warm smile and waves at him in greeting. He can’t help, but smile back a little. He ducks back into his room to grab something, but he can still make out some of what Karen and Matt are saying to each other in the kitchen.

“What if he’s not ready?”

“ _ Matt _ ,” Karen sighs at him, “how would you know unless you give it a shot? He’s nearly caught up on all his work and hasn’t told you he’s not okay with all this, right? And you asked him…”

“I know, I know. I just don’t want--Forget it. He’ll be fine, and if not, we’ll change tactics.”

“Hey, what was that? What don’t you want?”

Peter can hear something clatter on the counter and Matt puff out a sigh. “I don’t know how to do this and all I can think about is how I’m going to screw everything up for him.”

He exits his room, cutting off any chance for Karen to answer him. He watches her place a hand on Matt’s shoulder and squeeze. 

“I’ll see you at the courthouse, okay? Ready Peter?”

* * *

“Thanks for dropping me off, Miss Page. You really didn’t need to drive me,” Peter says as he gathers his bag up from the floor or the passenger seat.

Karen gives him a stern look for a moment, but he misses it--making sure his focus stays anywhere other than on her face. “Hey, none of that. I wanted to bring you on your first day since moving in. Matt would be here is he could, but court dates move for no one. I’ll be out here to pick you up too.” 

“You do know I’m capable of taking the subway, right?” He’s not some kid; he can navigate his own way to school and back, just like all his classmates do. 

Karen smiles when he finally turns to look at her instead of at the doors of Midtown Tech. “Yes, but Hell’s Kitchen is a little rougher than Queens. Can you blame us for wanting you to learn the area before going at it alone and around dark?”

Peter nods after a beat. He doesn’t blame them, per say; he just wishes he could have ten minutes without feeling supervised. The orphanage really pushed his buttons about autonomy. Constantly being near other people isn’t making him feel any less alone. May and Ben are still gone whether or not he has a father now and his father’s weirdly protective friends/co-workers. He sighs to himself when he remembers before he even has to head back to Matt’s--uh, his and Matt’s--he still has a day of school. 

“Now, go or you’re going to be late.”

“Okay. Bye, Miss Page,” he says before getting out of the car and shutting the door maybe a little too hard. 

He gets away from the car as quickly as he can without looking like a weirdo and heads to him and Ned’s usual morning spot. He texted Ned last night explaining that he’ll be back today, so he’ll know to wait for him. He rushes a little faster, realizing how much he needs a hug from him right now. 

Sure enough, beside the side door Ned is waiting for him perched on a big concrete planter, typing away on his tablet. (Probably tweaking a project due today that he ‘finished’ weeks ago. He never just lets something be  _ done _ .) He looks up when he hears Peter’s footsteps and the glee spreading across his features is contagious. Within a few seconds, Peter is being swept up into a tight hug with his face buried against Ned’s shoulder. He gives himself a moment to just squeeze right back.

“You ready?” Ned asks when they pull apart, looking at the school’s doors.

Peter shrugs. “Better than doing nothing, I guess. I’ll be fine, dude.”

They break out their patented handshake before Ned grabs his stuff and they head to Peter’s locker. 

“You’re back? How the hell did the orphanage swing the tuition here? You have to get on your knees for the Father or something, Penis?” Flash asks him, shouldering Peter against the door of his locker, slamming it shut almost on his hand. 

Ned rubs Peter’s arm where it hit the lockers and sends him a sympathetic look. He’s been on the end of Flash’s jeers enough times himself to know the gutting, burning feeling of wanting to fight back, but knowing that nothing good is going to come out of it. 

“You okay?” 

Peter opens his locker back up and shuffles through the books on the top shelf avoiding the question until he can answer with an even, strong voice. Flash could still be within earshot and he doesn’t want to give him anymore ammunition. He finds his math textbook with its beat up kraft paper cover. The front is full of Ned’s little doodles of BB8 saying the puns they thought up during some of the calculus lessons. 

“Yeah, yeah. Sure I am. It’s just Flash; nothing new.”

“Okay, but he’s never been that downright mean before… Isn’t Mr. Murdock a lawyer? Can’t he, like, sue the school for never doing anything about it’s major bullying problem?”

“I’m not running to Matt after my first day begging him to sue my school to make a guy treat me nicer, Ned. Besides, Mr. Harrington has tried to get him in trouble and it all just came down to contributions to the donations his parents give. There’s no use, dude. I’m sorry.”

**Author's Note:**

> please let me know what you think! i'd love to hear from you in the comments. your feedback is soooo appreciated!  
> what do you want to see next in the series?  
> find me on [tumblr](http://creaturejaskier.tumblr.com)


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